A plethora is an amount far greater than is needed. A plethora of options, a plethora of evidence, a whole plethora.
It means too many rather than many, though it is now used loosely for simply a lot. The Greek means fullness, and in old medicine a plethora was an excess of blood in the body.
1nounplethoraAn amount far greater than is needed.
“There's a plethora of cooking shows on television these days.”
plethora is an amount.
Greek plethora means fullness, from plethein, to be full; it was first a medical term for excess blood.
Proto-Indo-European
*pleh₁-
Ancient Greek
πληθώρα — fullness, satiety
Latin
plēthōra
English, today
plethora
From Latin plēthōra, from Ancient Greek πληθώρα (“fullness, satiety”), from πλήθω + -η.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA